Museum • The House • Kitchen - Part 2
This is the door from the kitchen to the back porch. This door is sturdier than the interior door including windows, raised panels, and heavier rails. There will be several screw-holes to repair from the curtain rod hangers (the hangers were left, but there never was a rod or curtains), the mini-blinds (I'm not fond of the color, those will be replaced with new blinds), and another useless little slide bolt.
This time instead of stripping I'm sanding. I'm only repainting the interior side, exterior will wait until I do the rest of the house exterior. There are some rough spots that need more filling, and again I'll be installing new hardware.
Here's the back door painted, ready for new hardware.
Hardware installed, and door rehung -- still need to paint the frame and the wall behind it, but the house is secure again so I can go back to work. Once the painting is finished I need to decide what kind of blinds or curtains I want to use over the window.
One of only two "modern style" HVAC registers in the house. The screws are missing because I took it off and tried to clean it. I'm thinking of priming and repainting it, or just replacing it because it is a standard size. Trouble is -- wall registers are mostly available in current standard sizes, generally painted white. Current standard sizes are typically 4"xWhatever. This one happens to be a standard size ... but what color do I really want this and several other registers to be once I am done? Since these are high in the wall, color coordination is more of an issue than it would be for a floor or baseboard register.
After spending so much on the air return for the utility room door, I had to spend twice as much on a matching register. This is cast iron, you regulate the vanes by twisting the circle in the middle.
This is the next wall to be painted, I could only go so far while the refrigerator was in the way. I've taken down the doorbell and left the bracket. I would like to do something to conceal the power cord for the phone.
The wallplates have been replaced with brass plates. Still need to do something about that power cord for the phone. Right now I'm thinking about chopping away the black wire and splicing in white wire, adding wire guides to run it along the moldings. If it was time to replace the refrigerator and stove I would be installing black appliances ... there is so much white in the overall scheme it could stand to be toned down with dark appliances.
This is the kitchen window, not much to work on here other than the window frame, and a little piece of wall. Eventually I will be replacing all the windows. Like the door, hangers were left from curtain rods - but the rods and curtains themselves are long gone. I'm still trying to decide how to treat this window, and I will want to match that treatment on the window in the door.
I've finished the wall, door, and window frame. The other door opening leads to the dining room. When I removed the drum for the light fixture (which I never really liked much) I found that the white-painted bands were peeling off. I decided to replace that glass drum, too. You can also see that I've painted the ceiling with a "popcorn" textured ceiling finish. (I'll have to replace this with a better picture later)
Here's a close up of one of the brass wallplates - this one around a receptacle mounted in the tile backsplash.
I've been meaning to replace this faucet for a while, for obvious reasons. The reason for the delay will be obvious in a later picture. What finally drove me to quit stalling and do it was that the sprayer hose cracked and started leaking.
This is why I've stalled for so long - the cabinet under the sink makes access to the hardware extremely difficult. The fitting for the sprayer hose is so hard to reach I'll need to remove the sink to get to it. Once the sink is removed it's just as easy to replace the whole faucet as it would be to replace just the sprayer hose.
And here's the new faucet installed.